'Eco-Terrorism,' And Nary a Redwood In Sight; Is Suburban Sprawl Debate So Fevered That It Encourages the Torching of Homes?

Published: January 14, 2001

Correction Appended

(Page 2 of 3)

''I think they are exploiting us,'' Mr. Englebright said of ELF. ''It appears that what they are doing is trying to take advantage of Long Island's struggles for their own notoriety and to try to get some coverage that would benefit their operation.''

With the biggest media center in the world a mere bumper-to-bumper ride west on the Long Island Expressway, the region can be attractive for anyone craving attention. Craig S. Rosebraugh, the ELF spokesman in Portland, said he had received about 70 calls from reporters around the country and the world in the past weeks.

It is a classic case of what is called ''propaganda of the deed,'' said Chip Berlet, the senior analyst at Political Research Associates, a think tank in Somerville, Mass., that studies authoritarian and anti-democratic social movements.

''What they are trying to say to one side is, 'You need to be more radical,' '' Mr. Berlet said. ''Overwhelmingly, as a tactic, this fails because people are repulsed by the violence.''

That is what happened after ELF took credit for a $12 million arson at a new ski resort in Vail, Colo., in 1998, said Michael Roselle, who works for Greenpeace, which over the years has had many confrontations with whalers, loggers and builders but says it has never destroyed property.

''They came back stronger and they got a better facility and they wiped out the local opposition to their expansion,'' Mr. Roselle said of those pushing for the Vail project. ''So it was lose-lose'' for the environmentalists.

Already in Suffolk, some developers have begun to paint all environmentalists with the same broad brush -- an injustice akin to painting all members of the media as unscrupulous paparazzi, Mr. Englebright said.

Robert A. Wieboldt, executive vice president of the Long Island Builders Institute, said the invective over land use on the East End has actually provided a toehold for violence. He has urged all political and governmental leaders in the area to denounce the violence and has offered a $10,000 reward.

''The key question in my mind is 'Why Long Island?' '' Mr. Wieboldt said. ''And the thing that first comes to mind is, the level of rhetoric on this island about preservation and development has been so extreme. The extreme rhetoric is essentially almost sort of a prior cause for this thing. I can just see soft minds being led, and I think the whole tone of the rhetoric has been so extreme that that is why it is hitting here.''

Local and national environmentalists reject that notion as preposterous. The politics of environmentalism on Long Island, no matter how divisive, cannot be blamed for criminality, they say. But they do not shrink from the issue of overdevelopment of Long Island as a valid concern.

''Violence should have no place whatsoever in political discourse, and the means employed by these few kooks are repugnant,'' said Mr. Goldstein of the Natural Resources Defense Council. ''But the concerns that prompted their action are reality-based. The environment is a major reason why people want to live on Long Island in the first place and you don't want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg by destroying it for short-sighted reasons.''

Mr. Becker, director of the global warming and energy program at the Sierra Club's Washington headquarters, argued that it was not worth discussing what may have driven the ELF actions because there could be no justification for criminal activity. And whatever their motivation, he said, it had nothing to do with the environment.

''I would be very surprised if, in the fullness of time, someone found out there was a specific operation to target Long Island,'' Mr. Becker said. ''These are either disturbed people or criminals. I have no respect for people who resort to violence, no matter what their political goals.''

And when they get the underlying set of facts about their target wrong, it further muddies the picture, many said.

''They don't consider the facts to be as important as the overall mission. They feel there is an excuse for this total-warfare attitude, and they don't necessarily need to do any kind of research,'' said Mr. Roselle, who was a founder of Earth First, an environmental group whose members held a gathering in England in the early 1990's where the ELF movement is said to have gotten its start.

Mr. Rosebraugh said he could not speak to the tactical errors because he was not member of the group. He attributes the informational glitches to the difficulty of corroborating the claims of an anonymous band of radicals.

Mr. Rosebraugh, who said he merely shared the information forwarded to him through means he declined to reveal, said his attempts to verify the details before releasing them were often hindered because local authorities would not speak freely.

Mr. Rosebraugh said he trusted the information from the communiques more than he did any account by officials or the media, because the ELF members were present for the action. But details aside, he said, ''the key importance is to let the public know what went on and why it went on.''

Correction: February 11, 2001, Sunday A picture caption on Jan. 14 about vandalism by the Earth Liberation Front misstated the slogan spray-painted on a garage door in a Mount Sinai housing development. It was: ''If You Build It We Will Burn It. E.L.F.'' (''Stop Urban Sprawl'' had been painted on another facade of the house.)